Sorry I haven’t
written for a while. I was busy celebrating Thanksgiving THREE TIMES! Living
far away from my family, it’s easy to assume that Thanksgiving might be a sad
or lonely occasion. When I first moved here, although I enjoyed celebrating
with new friends, I definitely felt the absence of my family. I still miss the
Arizona Thanksgivings – sitting out on my aunt’s porch, spreading the food out
on a ping-pong table covered with a plastic table cloth. Eating turkey, and
more turkey, and all of the delicious fixings. Drinking Martinelli’s, or punch.
Taking a walk, then coming back just to eat more – pumpkin pie. And more
pumpkin pie. I had a little moment on Thanksgiving when I couldn’t access a
live stream of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I shed a little tear, yes, I
did. Then I watched reruns on YouTube.
Last year, our
first year married, I wasn’t sure exactly how we would handle holidays, so we
just made stuff up as we went. Thanksgiving rolled around last year, and I
thought, I wonder if my in-laws would enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner? We decided
to invite the whole family, because, why not? And they came! I think they
mostly came last year because they thought, Oh, this poor girl wants to
celebrate this holiday and invited us, so we should go. By the week of
Thanksgiving, I was more than a bit nervous. Am I crazy? I have to cook all of
this food alone? And a turkey? What? The plus side was that no one coming
really knew what it was supposed to be. I could have ordered Burger King and
put it on fancy plates and no one would have really cared. But I cared, darn
it. I cared. And it all turned out wonderfully, with everyone asking
immediately after the meal – “You’re doing this next year, too, right?”
Fast forward to
this year – the questions about Thanksgiving started around November 1st – When
was Thanksgiving again? You’re making pumpkin pie again, right? That felt good.
I told everyone we’d do it the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and everyone
decided to do a three-day fast before, as a joke. Then it wasn’t a joke. We all,
I mean the whole extended family, got a stomach/intestinal bug about three days
before Thanksgiving, along with about half of the city, from what we heard. I’ll
spare you the details, but I was so thankful that we had decided to keep the
two bathrooms as functional bathrooms. Just sayin’.
I was getting
nervous, since Thursday was thaw countdown T-3, ie, I had to take the turkey
out of the freezer, and that’s the point of no return. My husband said all
systems were go, although most systems were still way too much go, if you know
what I mean. I went ahead, though, and started thawing the turkey. By Friday
most people were better, and on Saturday, everyone was able to eat the dinner.
It was a “Thanksgiving Miracle”! We had a great family time, complete with
crazy antics from my husband’s hilarious uncle, and his cousin’s 2-year-old
being cute in general.
Then, since we
had so many leftovers, we invited three people in town from AZ for a repeat the
next day. And we STILL had leftovers. Then, since everyone was so sick on
Thanksgiving, our friends from church decided to postpone their celebration, so
we had another dinner with our church family last Saturday. And another miracle
– I didn’t gain any weight! Even that sickness was a blessing in disguise!
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